If artist Mara Abboud is painting in her Santa Barbara studio, don’t bother knocking or calling her on the phone.
When she is immersed in the creative process she doesn’t take calls and she doesn’t answer the door. Abboud likes total silence when she paints with just the sound of the waves from the Pacific Ocean, which she can clearly see from her window, as the only audible distraction.
For 29 years Abboud has made her living solely as an artist.
For the last 26 of those years she’s lived here in Santa Barbara, having moved west from New York City. During her lifetime she has created around 300 paintings. Many of them are hanging on the walls of the homes of her numerous collectors.
Among the first to collect her works was opera singer Beverly Sills who purchased three of Abboud’s pieces when Abboud was still a relative newcomer on the New York City art scene. That list of collectors has since grown to include local residents Terry Ryken, Patricia Johnstone, Tommie Jean Pitts, Andy and Dolly Granatelli, Don and Elizabeth Murray, Lady Leslie Ridley-Tree, Morrie Jurkowitz, Barry and Jelinda DeVorzon, Roland & Joyce Bryan, and the late Fess Parker and his wife Marcella, just to name a few.
“Most of my life, I’ve painted constantly,” Abboud tells me over coffee at her home, “but in recent years I’ve slowed down.” At the height of her productivity Abboud was creating eight to 10 pieces per year. Working at that pace it would typically take her a good year-and-a-half to create the 14 or 15 paintings that are needed for a show.
During such creative periods, Abboud would work seven days a week, typically in the mornings, which she finds to be her most creative time.
In 1979 Abboud made her first trip out to California for an art show in San Francisco. She had read about Santa Barbara in a guidebook that mentioned our red-tiled roofs and decided that a side trip here was in order. Upon arrival in Santa Barbara she fell “madly in love” with the town. She called a Realtor to help her find a place and she has been here ever since.
Not surprisingly, her paintings adorn the walls of her immaculately kept yet comfortable home.
“I love it when people touch my paintings,” she says.
She adds that children are very drawn to the bright colors and designs that are the signature feature of her artworks. That could very well be the reason that Cottage Hospital has commissioned her to create five original paintings for its Healing Arts program, the purpose of which is to give comfort to patients and their families.
If Abboud hadn’t gone into art she probably would have gone into acting, having formally studied the craft for a few years.
However, she found work in the commercial art field and then made the transition to fine art.
Abboud has traveled all over the world and her paintings show the influence of her journeys. She’s always been drawn to Moorish art and the sketches for one of her pieces, entitled “Marrakesh,” were done in Morocco. Peru’s Machu Picchu tops the list of places that she hasn’t yet visited but would like to see.
Sundays are often spent with her three-and-a-half year-old great niece, whom she describes as the “greatest love affair in her life.” They typically attend church in the morning and then go to breakfast. Sunday afternoons are often spent with friends over lunch or perhaps taking in a movie matinee.
So with a vast body of work to her credit including 25 one-woman art shows where does Abboud go from here?
“I feel at this point in my life I’ve gone to the nth degree with my paintings.” Among her future plans are to license her art for use on scarves and other accessories.
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